I was reading in the Evansville Courier & Press what one Evansville resident in the early 1900s had predicted for the area in the following century. He believed that by the next century, the city would be huge, with tall skyscrapers and moving sidewalks. He also predicted that the entire city would be run on hydropower, since in his estimation, coal supplies would be gone by then. In his vision, Evansville would be the Midwest's vacation destination, with boats all over the Ohio River and numerous parks and green spaces. I couldn't help but wish that more of this vision had become a reality. Evansville's downtown could use a bit of a facelift, althought that is changing slowly at this point. The real irony I saw is that this individual predicted the area would be far beyond coal-reliant and would in fact, obtain all of its electricity from hydropower from the river. Now, I know that damming rivers to create this kind of power has environmental implications, including upsetting aquatic life, but when you look at the mercury and other pollutants from coal entering our waterways, would the fish be worse off with hydropower? It was ironic to me that someone early in the last century had viewed the southern Indiana of today as being run on renewable and clean energy rather than the dirty coal of that time. I wonder what this visionary would think about this area still be extremely reliant on the coal industry. He would probably be dismayed that his forward-thinking view on the area was too ambitious--even if he was looking forward about 100 years. I wonder how many parts of our nation will still be tied to coal in the next century. With global warming already starting to rear its ugly head, perhaps forward-thinking visionaries will be given more respect than simply being viewed as people with pipe-dreams.